Depending upon which Oracle of Death you consult, newspapers are either already dead or will be soon. This debate is of more than passing interest, especially to those in public relations who work with journalists to place stories, or those in advertising agencies who design print campaigns.

But let’s be clear: It’s the wrong debate.

The future of news printed on dead trees is not important to human behavior or world society. I say that as someone whose first love was journalism. I spent about 20 years writing and editing news that appeared on some form of paper.

The future of the newspaper as we know it in this 21st century is about as relevant as what happened to the horse and buggy in the 20th century. It is also about as relevant as discussing the quality of components in my iPhone instead of what I can do with the features those components enable on my iPhone.

As humans, we are wired to consume, discuss, and opine upon whatever we consider to be “news.” This human behavior is not dependent upon whether that news arrives on a dead tree, on or your Facebook page, or on the network evening news.

Too many “marketers” do themselves (and their clients or employers) a huge disservice by focusing more on the tool that delivers information rather than on how we as human beings use that information. I find this to be especially true these days when it comes to social media. I don’t care if it’s Twitter or Facebook or YouTube — these are tools that enable communication, they do not change the biology that compels us to seek out connections and information, including “news.”

The newspaper is also a tool. It is a means of delivering information that in many ways has been superceded as a delivery mechanism, and in some ways, has yet to be replaced (when I can read the news on a Kindle while taking a bath and not fear the results when it falls in the suds, that may change).

So what’s the secret or the observation here? I challenge myself every day to step back from the tools of the trade and focus on the big picture instead. A press release no more defines public relations than a newspaper defines news.

Marketers and creative people are always complaining that the good people we work with as clients, colleagues and bosses don’t “get” what we do, that they instead want to talk about the colors in a logo, or the fine print in ad or the talent chosen for a commercial.

What’s happening with the growing fissure between “news” and “newspapers” should give all of us who consider ourselves creatives a prime opportunity to remind those we work with that communication (or news) is not about the medium in which it’s delivered — it’s about whether the communication happens. It’s an opportunity to refocus the conversation where all of us say we want to spend our time anyway: on the strategy and thinking that guides our work, not on the details.

If and when newspapers do disappear completely, I will shed a tear or two. I will miss the smells and sounds of a high-speed Goss Metroliner thumping through a 250,000-copy print run, the blur of type speeding through the webs of the towering press decks. I’ll miss the secret thrill of sitting in a coffee shop on a morning when my story topped page 1 and everyone, it seemed, was reading that story and commenting on it.

But I will not miss the news — it will evolve, but will continue until and unless our basic biology changes. And I will not miss the opportunity to continue to put all of my skills to work helping people to get into the news, to make the news better, and to use the news. I realize that the real debate is not about whether newspapers will live or die, but whether we as humans can make news itself a tool that informs and enriches our own lives on a daily basis.

Paul Furiga is the president and founder of WordWrite Communications, a fast-growing Pittsburgh public relations agency employs the ageless power of storytelling to deliver results for its clients. You can contact Paul and learn more about WordWrite at: http://www.wordwritepr.com.